Cash-out or flameout! Opportunity cost and entrepreneurial strategy: Theory, and evidence from the information security industry
We analyze how entrepreneurial opportunity cost conditions performance. Departing from the common practice of using survival as a measure of entrepreneurial performance, we model both failure and cashout (liquidity event) as conditioned by the same underlying process. High-opportunity-cost entrepreneurs prefer a shorter time to success, even if this also implies failing more quickly, whereas entrepreneurs with fewer outside alternatives will choose less aggressive strategies and, consequently, linger on longer. We formalize this intuition with a simple model. Using a novel data set of information security start-ups, we find that entrepreneurs with high opportunity costs are not only more likely to cash out more quickly but are also more likely to fail faster. Not only is survival a poor indicator of performance, but its use as one obscures the relationship between entrepreneurial characteristics, entrepreneurial strategies, and outcomes. © 2011 INFORMS.
Duke Scholars
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- Operations Research
- 46 Information and computing sciences
- 38 Economics
- 35 Commerce, management, tourism and services
- 15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
- 08 Information and Computing Sciences
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Operations Research
- 46 Information and computing sciences
- 38 Economics
- 35 Commerce, management, tourism and services
- 15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
- 08 Information and Computing Sciences